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Six Tips for Writing Natural Dialogue
It’s all about making it sound right to the reader’s inner ear.
Dialogue is such an integral part of writing fiction. I’d even argue that fiction can be divided into two categories: dialogue and everything else.
It also happens to be hard to write well. Really hard. Which is kind of funny if you think about it, because dialogue is something we all do all day long. That’s true whether we’re talking to other people or to ourselves, inside our heads.
We’re constantly talking in some way to someone.
But translating that into good writing isn’t as easy as direct transcription. Because when we talk in real life, there’s a lot of extra garbage that goes into it. A lot of stumbling and stuttering and ums and ehs and likes.
It boils down to this. Good written dialogue is slightly more formal than spoken dialogue.
Kind of like how, in order to appear natural on the stage, a Broadway actor has to wear a lot of makeup. In order to sound natural, written dialogue has to be prettied up.
The good news is that writing natural dialgoue is something that can be learned. And I’m here to help.
